This post alerts readers to Cold words (CSIRO, 2025) by Bernadette Hince, a former editor of Australian Garden History and also dictionary-maker and natural historian with a passionate interest in language and the world’s cold places.
This ‘ice-breaking’ book collects the English words of the Antarctic and the Arctic for the first time. These words relate to weather, ice and snow, auroras, clothes, food, housing, social structures, wildlife, plants, politics, as well as many other aspects of polar life. The terms are presented with scientific precision, a helpful interpretative commentary and moments of whimsy.
Apart from Antarctica and the Arctic, the regions covered here stretch to places as remote as the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Tristan da Cunha and the Falkland Islands.
Judging by the table of contents this is a book that will reveal much you never knew about the icy poles and will certainly expand your vocabulary:
A – aaqsiiq to azorella
B – bachelor to Byrd cloth
C – caa’ing whale to cut-ups
D – Dahurian larch to dwarf willow
E – eaglet to eyelock
F – fachine to fur trading
G – gakti to gyrfalcon
H – hagemannite to hypertat
I – ice to ivu
J – jackass penguin to juobmo
K – kabloona to kvan
L – Labrador collared lemming to luminous cloud
M – mac to muttonbird sedge
N – nacreous cloud to NZARP
O – OAE to ozone hole
P – paamerak to pyramid tent
Q – qaaktak to quyana
R – rabbit to rufous-chested dotterel
S – SAB to sysselman
T – tab to two-foot high kick
U – ugli to uuraq
V – Vandal to VUWAE
W – wallow to wriggly tin
X Y Z – Yak to zucchini
See more at https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/8193#details